More Detail on AT&T's Austin Fiber to the Press Release
by Karl Bode 09:23AM Tuesday Oct 01 2013 Tipped by whamel
After Google announced their launch of Google Fiber into the Austin market, AT&T played a game of "me too," announcing a rather vague plan to deploy 1 Gbps to a small portion of the city. AT&T today issued a little more detail on their plan, stating they've begun construction on what they're calling "AT&T U-verse with GigaPower."
According to AT&T, a select group of Austinites will be able to order the faster service starting in December, though initially the company will "only" be offering symmetrical speeds of 300 Mbps. Customers who order the tier will be upgraded to symmetrical 1 Gbps sometime in 2014.
AT&T's still a little ambiguous on who precisely will be able to get this faster service, stating only that they'll be deploying the service to "tens of thousands of customer locations" after several years. AT&T mimics Google Fiber's "fiberhood" approach, insisting that users can vote for their neighborhood via AT&T's website.
You might not want to hold your breath on your website vote meaning too much. While this has a glossier coat of paint to counter Google Fiber buzz, AT&T's effectively doing what they've already been doing for some time in focusing upgrade energy on more exclusive development communities, though those FTTH communities were previously capped at just 24 Mbps.
The company has made it repeatedly clear that they aren't interested in investing a huge amount of money in fixed-line networks when the real money is in wireless and $15 per gigabyte LTE overages. While the company has made much of "Project VIP" network investment project, their investment numbers for that project have been a lot of smoke, mirrors and very fuzzy math.
Still, beggars can't be choosers, and for the relatively speed-and-upgrade-averse AT&T to offer 1 Gbps lines anywhere is certainly an improvement; it's precisely the kind of result Google was hoping for when they created Google Fiber as a broadband industry kick in the pants. Left unmentioned in AT&T's announcement is price, and whether they'll be willing to match Google Fiber's $70 for symmetrical 1 Gbps price point.
This is exactly what google wanted. To push the envelope. Once you have "gigapower", everything can live in the cloud. Disk drives/flash will be a memory to consumers.
It's unfortunate how they will only prob deploy where there is competition, but as they say that is where the action is...
The 300/300 is probably because they are doing metro-e and that means they are subscribing 4:1, which the latest gear does, hence the 300/300
You simply can't give credit where credit is due because you clearly dont own Google stock. Otherwise you would be up on that pony jockeying the hell out of it like you do the other crap companies you blindly support and yet they do so much less for "us".
Of course. They don't like it when a company spends the profits they leech off of for the betterment of the company's future. They want their short sighted returns here and now, they don't care if what they do makes the company a better company down the road.
Confirmation on the cap? That doesn't make sense, and if it doesn't make sense it's probably not true. IMHO 999GB sounds like a capricious number that AT&T would throw around versus say the 10TB Verizon soft cap.
AT&T is a me-too company. I don't think I have seen an original thought out of them ever, so I don't expect one, ever. It's like working for the government, or in the case of AT&T a quasi-governmental agency.
Confirmation on the cap? That doesn't make sense, and if it doesn't make sense it's probably not true…..
How does cap+overage byte billing not make sense to you? It's big T's model now. Maybe not @ 150GB, but there WILL be some bandwidth monetization going on.
I get it, but I was questioning the 150 GB assertion.
And if the local cable provider doesn't have caps, this can be an issue and they will need to remain competitive. As for google, well they just set the bar so high if the others can be me-too well all the better.
And like I said AT&T is a me-too company, so no original thought.
Actually it will be interesting to see AT&T & Google go head to head in Austin.
Kinda like each other slamming their dicks on the table.
Competition sounds good except we forgot what they knew 100 years ago, the communication loop is a natural monopoly. Verizon has two million dark FiOS OTNs with dying batteries. Where is the Google forum BTW, I'd like to see what their subscribers have to say.
This is entirely coincidental. AT&T was loong planning to offer this product. And Austin was decided for reasons other than Google Fiber coming to town. It is all merely coincidental and has nothing to do with Google.
Google needs to rollout in a major city of each of the national ISPs (Verizon, Cablevision and the other cable companies) and watch how fast those fat cats get on their butts and start competing with real speeds.
2013-Oct-1 9:13 am: ·
dvd536 as Mr. Pink as they come Premium join:2001-04-27 Phoenix, AZ kudos:4
Re: Coincidental - NOTHING to do with Google Fiber
dont you mean files lawsuits to make them burn thru all their cash so nothings left for the network.
Re: Coincidental - NOTHING to do with Google Fiber
lawsuit for what?? As long as Google is treated the same as the other carriers, there should be none. The only city that said no to Google was Overland Park. Why take on the risk of Google just to maybe have their network built in 5 years.
Google needs to rollout in a major city of each of the national ISPs (Verizon, Cablevision and the other cable companies) and watch how fast those fat cats get on their butts and start competing with real speeds.
Google should compete in Irvington NJ where Verizon was mandated to deploy FiOS. There are a few of the two million installed and now unused FiOS loops there. Come on Google show Verizon how it is done.
And Google has rolled out nothing yet in Austin either. At least AT&T is planning on starting this December. When will Google, who has promised rollouts in multiple cities, roll out something other than in a couple neighborhoods in KC?
I'm in Austin and am a less than a half a block from a U-Verse cabinet and can only get 3Mbps DSL due to older building wire. I don't expect that to change. I live in a neighborhood right next to downtown where rents are $1800/month for 2 bedrooms in newer buildings.
Time Warner has been very busy however doing something around my neighborhood lately- whole fleets of trucks are parked at times as groups of workers go block by block on the poles.
I'm expecting awesome deals and speeds unique to this city on TW within a year on cable.
Time Warner has been very busy however doing something around my neighborhood lately- whole fleets of trucks are parked at times as groups of workers go block by block on the poles.
That is indicative of activities like plant sweeps looking for cracked cable insulation, damaged passives, etc to eliminate ingress, balance the plant, etc. It could also be the plant team swapping out diplexers in the passives.
Hopefully that means that TWC is not only installing CableWiFi but also upgrading their plant to 1GHz...and cleaning up the upstream side of the plant...so they can do 8x4 (or maybe 24x4) bonding. I'm tired of sitting at 4x1; anytime I go to a Comcast area I'm seeing 8x3 or 8x4 if the modem supports it.
Eh Cox does 8x4 here as well, but it's not without issues. Dropped packet city, so i ended up going back to CenturyLink 40/5 DSL and while it was a "10Mbps" drop from cable, it's been much more consistent and stable than Cox could ever produce.
Cox actually has a really good Cable network here for the most part (by far one of the best maintained ones i've ever used), but it also comes at a price for their services.
Ordinarily I don't like Texas, but I have a friend in Austin so I'll cut that city some slack. It's time for Google to build this fiber out faster and break records for deployment times not just the fastest speeds to residential consumers at the cheapest prices.
2013-Oct-1 5:55 pm: ·
batterup I Can Not Tell A Lie. Premium join:2003-02-06 Netcong, NJ
Ordinarily I don't like Texas, but I have a friend in Austin so I'll cut that city some slack. It's time for Google to build this fiber out faster and break records for deployment times not just the fastest speeds to residential consumers at the cheapest prices.
Do you people really think Google wants to be a real get down and dirty company? Google fiber is just another "loon"ey idea. Google makes money by knowing everything about you and selling that information to the highest bidder.
I'll listen when the first Google fiber forum appears. BTW how is that Google open cell service working for you?
Ordinarily I don't like Texas, but I have a friend in Austin so I'll cut that city some slack. It's time for Google to build this fiber out faster and break records for deployment times not just the fastest speeds to residential consumers at the cheapest prices.
Good luck on that as Google has not even started! Also I would take AT&T's 300M/300M over Google any days... Google Fiber is just a quicker way for Google to mine every bit of data you send/receive to sell to the highest bidder. [And since Google would be the last mile --- there's nothing preventing them from doing that on a Google Fiber connection since all packets sent/receive route via their routers].
My guess what AT&T's going to do is for those areas that currently have UVerse VDSL2 in Austin (swap out the cards in the VRAD shelf for those that can do fiber) at that point they just have to run fiber to the "end user" (homes) and install ONT's... AT&T's got the advantage that the VRADs already have "fiber" to them... Just have to replace the last mile.
quote:though those FTTH communities were previously capped at just 24 Mbps
It is not true that AT&T was offering the 24Mbps tier to FTTH customers. The FTTH customers have been limited to only the 18Mbps tier, with the 24Mbps being only avail for the copper-only customers. Please check your facts.
·
·
·
·
